Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 30 June 2023 to Question 190556 on Climate Change: Education, what her planned timeframe is for publishing the progress report on the implementation of the Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As committed to in the Department’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, the Department will produce a progress report on the implementation of this strategy. The report is anticipated to be published in December this year.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to deliver on the commitment of the former Secretary of State for Education at COP26 on the integration of sustainability and climate change in formal education systems.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department published the Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy for the education and children’s service systems in April 2022. The link can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sustainability-and-climate-change-strategy/sustainability-and-climate-change-a-strategy-for-the-education-and-childrens-services-systems.
It sets out action to 2030 on: climate education, green skills and careers, the education estate and digital infrastructure, operations and supply chains, and international. This action will be evaluated and built on as new opportunities and evidence arise. The strategy covers each of the Department’s sectors: early years, schools, further education, higher education, and children social care. It sets out new initiatives, including extra support for teaching about nature and climate change, the introduction of a natural history GCSE and sustainability leadership and climate action plans in education.
Links for the two latter initiatives can be found at: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/national-impact/national-education-nature-park-and-climate-action-awards-scheme.html and: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sustainability-leadership-and-climate-action-plans-in-education.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how school leaders can set budgets for the next school year without (a) the information on pay for leaders and teachers contained in the School Teachers’ Review Body report and (b) a response from Government on funding for the report’s recommendations on pay; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department understands the timing of the national pay award announcement presents budgeting challenges for schools. The Department is continuing to work across Government to ensure announcements are made as early as possible. This year, the Department has allowed trusts more time to prepare their budgets by extending the deadline to 31 August 2023 for the Budget Forecast Return (BFR) that academies are required to provide, setting out their budget plans.
Following unions’ rejection of the Government’s 4.5% offer in March 2023, the independent School Teachers’ Review Body has submitted its recommendations to government on teacher pay for the 2023/24 academic year, as part of the normal process. The Department will be considering the recommendations and will publish our response in the usual way.
Funding for both mainstream schools and high needs, including the additional funding announced at the Autumn Statement, is £3.5 billion higher in the 2023/24 financial year, compared to 2022/23. This is the highest ever level per pupil, in real terms, as measured by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The Department provides these increases to school revenue budgets so that schools can cover cost increases in the year ahead, including to teacher pay. As usual, schools should plan for how teacher pay awards could be managed within this existing funding.
The Department’s position remains that a 4% teacher pay award should be affordable, nationally, from the funding increases already promised to schools, as set out in an Education Hub post published at the time, which can be found at: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/28/teacher-strikes-latest-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-teacher-pay-offer/.
It would be sensible for schools to consider the range of possible scenarios on pay that might materialise, and what the implications would be for their individual school.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Government response to recommendations 7 and 8 of the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, published in May 2023, CP 844, what progress she has made on implementing the commitment to explore proposals for professional registration of the residential childcare workforce made in the Government’s response to the Care Review’s Final Report, Stable Homes, Built on Love published in February 2023; and if she will make a statement. .
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The government recognises the important contribution of the residential childcare workforce in caring for some of the most vulnerable children in our society. It is vital that we ensure they have the skills required to safeguard, support and care for them.
The department accepts in principle that staff working in care roles in children's homes should be registered, as recommended by both the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (recommendation 7) and the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. The department is progressing our consideration of how best to take this forward alongside work to develop a programme to support improvements in the quality of leadership and management in the children’s homes sector. The department will announce further details in due course.
In response to recommendation 8 of the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the government has accepted the need for registration of staff in young offender institutions and secure training centres, noting that an internal register would be the most appropriate for the relatively small workforce. The department is currently exploring proposals and is still exploring with key stakeholders how it may operate.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to produce a progress report on the implementation of her Department’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As committed to in the Department’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, the Department will produce a progress report on the implementation of this strategy.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Government’s commitment to make it a legal duty for incidents of use of reasonable force to be recorded and reported to parents or carers by bringing section 93A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 into force when parliamentary time allows, whether she plans to bring forward legislative proposals to enact this commitment in this Parliament.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government recognises that the misuse of reasonable force or restrictive practices can have a significant and long-lasting effect on the pupils, staff members and parents involved, as well as the wider classroom by potentially hindering the creation of a calm, safe and supportive school environment. The Government is therefore committed to minimising the use of reasonable force and restrictive practice in all schools.
Part of this action is to commence Section 93A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which will make recording and reporting of incidents of use of force to parents/carers a legal duty, alongside producing revised ‘Use of Reasonable Force’ guidance to support schools to understand and implement their duties.
A call for evidence into the use of reasonable force and restrictive practices in schools has been launched, which will run from 15 February to 11 May 2023. This evidence will inform the drafting of the ‘Use of Reasonable Force’ guidance, which will be subject to a public consultation.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons adopted people aged between 21 and 25 who do not have an Education and Health Care Plan are ineligible for Adoption Support Funding for therapy; what assessment she has made of the impact of that rule on the mental health of those people; if she will make it her policy to increase that funding so that all adopted young people can get access to therapy; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The role of the Adoption Support Fund (ASF) is to provide funding for trauma and attachment therapy, as well as specialist assessments related to trauma and attachment, to children and young people who have been adopted or are under special guardianship orders after previously being in care.
The department recognises that some of these young adults with special educational needs and disabilities also have access to an education, health and care plan up to age 25 because of their particular needs. We have, therefore, said these young people can also access the ASF up until age 25, to ensure they receive consistency of support for all their needs. These young people often have the highest potential for family breakdown due to the complexities of overcoming the trauma they may have experienced in their early years on top of their other special educational or health needs.
Other young people aged over 21, who had previously been accessing ASF support, can access NHS adult mental health services, including therapeutic support. The government is investing at least £2.3 billion of additional funding a year by April 2024 to expand and transform mental health services in England so that 2 million more people will be able to get the mental health support they need. The government also announced in January 2023 a £150 million investment up to April 2025 to better support people experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, mental health crises to receive care and support in more appropriate settings outside of A&E.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to require the Student Loan Company to undertake data-gathering on the (a) characteristics of and (b) reasons given by students who (i) withdraw or (ii) take an intermission from university, and to share that data with (a) universities and (b) Government agencies seeking to ensure that students do not face barriers to participation; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Student Loans Company (SLC) receives notifications of student withdrawal from higher education (HE) or study intermission from providers solely in order to determine whether fee and maintenance payments should be paid. This data is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-in-year-student-withdrawal-notifications-academic-year-201819-to-202223.
The department receives withdrawals data from the SLC for internal analysis purposes. This data identifies characteristics such as age, household income and living arrangements.
The government does not currently have plans to ask the SLC to collect other data about the withdrawal of students.
Authoritative data on students not continuing or completing their HE studies by person characteristics is published by the Office for Students in the ‘Student characteristics data: Outcomes data’ dashboard. This can be accessed here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/student-characteristics-data/outcomes-data-dashboard/.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made with Cabinet colleagues of the adequacy of the regulatory framework applying to hotels providing accommodation to unaccompanied children seeking asylum under the National Transfer Scheme; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The Home Office are accommodating unaccompanied asylum seeking children on an emergency and temporary basis until they are transferred under the National Transfer Scheme to a responsible local authority. The Department for Education and the Home Office are clear that the best place for these children is in a local authority care placement.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make a comparative assessment of the eligibility criteria for access to free school meals (a) on 9 February 2022 and (b) planned for the end of 2024 in each (i) nation of the United Kingdom and (ii) local authority; and if she will make it her policy to expand eligibility for free school meals in England to all children who have a parent on Universal Credit; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Education, including free school meals (FSM), is a devolved matter. This response outlines the information for England only.
The latest published statistics from the Department are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics. The figures show that around 1.9 million pupils are claiming FSM. This equates to 22.5% of all pupils, up from 20.8% in 2021. Together with a further 1.25 million infants supported through the Universal Infant Free School Meal policy, over one third of school children are now provided with FSM, at a cost of over £1 billion a year. The Department currently has protections in place, ensuring that eligible pupils keep their FSM entitlement even if their household circumstances change. The end date for these has now been extended until March 2025.
The Department’s current eligibility threshold enables children in low income households to benefit from FSM, while remaining affordable and deliverable for schools. The Department will continue to keep FSM eligibility under review to ensure that support is targeted at those who most need them, as well as continuing to monitor current issues that affect disadvantaged families, such as the rising cost of living.